The Messiah of Morris Avenue

In the near future of this alternately cynical and rapturous fable, America is a theocracy where the Christian Right, empowered by laws against blasphemy and witchcraft, controls everything from Congress to "Holywood" and foments Armageddon. Christ chooses this time to return in the guise of José, the Bronx-bred son of a Guatemalan immigrant with a discipleship of drifters and crack whores. Charismatic, open about his divinity and obliging with miracles, José wins over even Johnny Grecco, the jaundiced reporter who writes his gospel. Journalist Hendra, author of the best-selling Catholic- mentorship memoir Father Joe and former editor in chief of Spy , makes José the savior of liberal Christianity. José's theology is vaguely feminist (it includes "God the Mother"), vaguely Gnostic and just plain vague ("Blessed are the doubters..."), but he's militantly for love and tolerance and against war and creationism. Hendra writes a heart-wrenching Passion story, but the novel's broad satire—of both the Christian Right and of spineless liberal appeasers—clashes with the reverence accorded José and his New Agey platitudes (his evasion of the problem of evil is particularly mealy-mouthed). This messiah is an awfully nice deity, but he doesn't give our formidable world its due. (Apr.)